The Fading Dream
by Axis II
Summary: Inquisitor Lavellan searches for Solas in the only place she knows.


_Woke up with this bouncing in my head and thought I'd put it up. R&amp;R if you like._

_Bioware owns everything. Except whatever McDonald's and Walmart are still squabbling over._

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**The Fading Dream**

Lavellan strode through Skyhold's halls, mentally ticking down the list of tasks for her day. Talk to Leliana about sending scouts to gather up the missing shards. Ask Cullen about forming a rehab for the few remaining Templars. Send Bull and the Chargers out to mop up lyrium smugglers; likewise Blackwall with a team for the darkspawn. Rein in the gross exaggerations Varric was already putting on paper about the Inquisitor's exploits.  
She passed a mirror and paused as she always did, every day and several times a day. It was a reflex anymore to check her reflection. Was she herself? Was everything real? The tired but proud visage staring back at her was sometimes hard to see as her own. To have come so far and changed so much; everything was different from the depths of her being to the surface of her skin. She brushed a hand over her cheek, shock widening her eyes as she touched the vallaslin. _It's not supposed to –_

The realization shot through her body like the jolt of a lightning spell. She spun, looking at the formerly solid walls of Skyhold, watching them blur and ripple. Concentrate. You can do this. It's a dream. Reaching out she wiped her hands clean through the stone, brushing the walls away. The rocks attempted to rise and rebuild themselves. They climbed together into the ridges of the Storm Coast; crumbled to dust they became dunes in the Hissing Wastes, whipping sand in her face._ That's not it. Not right. Not what I want._ She forced the rebellious landscape to bow to her will, the grains of sand stinging her skin turning cool, becoming flakes of snow that swept past her in a blizzard but gradually slowed to a dance.

The storm finally stilled and Ellana opened her eyes – if it were possible that they'd been closed at all. The ruins of Haven jutted from the collapsed mountainside like bones in a disturbed grave. Flurries spun around the ruined walls and pillars, miniature avalanches buried entire houses. The pristine, painful white of the snow had blended with crushed stone and dark ash, turning everything to the color of despair.

_Not right!_ The Inquisitor dropped angrily to the ground, resting her head on her knees in exhausted frustration. She came here in her mind so often, trying to force her way back to the Haven of before. The vibrant noise of training and the Chantry songs; the colors of tents and robes and armor; it was there, tucked deep in her memory but refused to budge. Most often she could only summon blankness, a barren landscape devoid of any thought because her mind would not yield to fantasy. A handful of times she found herself here in the ruins of her failure.

She pressed her fingers into the ashy snow, feeling the granules of soot where they separated from shards of ice. Losing Haven didn't actually hurt anymore. Not after the victory. Not now that they had won and everyone was safe and everything seemed worth it. Almost everything. Was it even possible to return to the dream of a dream? How real it had seemed when Solas took her walking here in the Fade. _All the smells, sounds, sights,_ Lavellan shivered, _the s__ensations_. It all felt right. It had felt true._ Except it wasn't._ The Inquisitor rose to her feet, angrily brushing snow from her hands and clothing. None of it had been real. Least of all him. And what could you possibly feel for someone you didn't know? The flutter in her stomach when she'd reached for him, the swell of relief when he turned and caught hold of her; none of it was true.

Glaring at the stubborn ruins the Inquisitor drew herself tall. In the Fade nothing was real except the dreamer. _I was true, I am._ Whatever her mistakes, her oversights, her assumptions and her illusions; she was honest about them. She would not deceive others or herself. Lifting a handful of ash she let it sift through her fingers, billowing away in the breeze. _Out of these ashes . . ._

"You rose." The completion of her thought came not from within her head, but behind her shoulder. Ellana stiffened, knowing the voice and its cadences as intimately as her own heartbeat. She didn't turn. Not at once. Dreams were fragile, they could be frightened, shattered, turn to ghosts and slip away faster the tighter you tried to hang on.

"The Inquisition did." She corrected. There might have been a time when she thought of herself as a separate entity, something apart from the people united by purpose. She had been a hapless bystander, drawn unwillingly into events beyond her control. It was elven thinking: this is the people, that is shem. At some point the distinction stopped mattering. They were all the Inquisition and no one more so than her; she was the Inquisitor. If she succeeded, they all did. If they failed, the fault was her own.

Tuned to the turn of her thoughts, the ruins of Haven parted, sliding away to the distance as a mountain rose beneath them. Skyhold filled the horizon, banners whipping in the wind like a promise for all of Thedas.

"You have grown skilled at walking the Fade." Solas observed, impressed by the ease with which her subconscious manipulated the world around them.

"I've been getting a lot of practice." Ellana chuckled, hollow and mirthless as she finally turned to face her missing . . . What? What had they been? She had bared her heart and he'd done nothing but run. He was either cruel or a coward. It ached to see him, to know she didn't actually care which it was.

"Ma vhenan -," Solas' pained expression saw all the bitterness in her. He took a step closer, lips framing apology, comfort, explanation. _Lies._ The Inquisitor punched him. The ashes of Haven on her fist smeared black on his face, a mark like the bruise that couldn't happen in dreams.

"Don't! Don't you dare. 'Your heart?' Fenedhis!" Ellana cursed, shaking out her fingers. She'd forgotten how much it hurt to strike someone with a frozen hand. Why did dreams have to remember such details?

Solas didn't touch his cheek, didn't step back from the harsh anger in Lavellan's face. If anything the wounds of his eyes deepened, a well of sorrows all their own.

"Is that why you came? Why you have been searching for me? I've felt you. For weeks you have pushed at the edges of the Fade to find where I hide. So now I am here," he spread his arms, a simple gesture of surrender, "Is this what you wanted?"

"No," Ellana admitted, even though punching him had crossed her mind a few hundred times since the moment he broke off from her, "I want answers, Solas. What happened? Where are you? Who are you? Why did you leave?"

"Is that truly what you wish to know?" the mage had a way of tilting his head to one side when he already knew the answer to a question. One eyebrow arched upwards in confident doubt, waiting to see if she knew herself as well as he.

The Inquisitor looked away from the challenging gaze, scouring her mind for what he thought he knew. She pushed aside the anger and insults, all the recriminations that had festered in her heart for weeks. The questions were what mattered. If she had those answers, would they be enough? Who, where, what, why – they were all doors onto paths of even more questions. Where did they all lead? None of the answers would change anything that had happened. Ellana felt the last of her fury melt away, leaving only the spent weakness of truth. The past was behind. So what question lay ahead?

"Are you-," Lavellan paused, choking the emotion out of her voice, "Will you be coming back?"

A hint of relief crossed Solas' smile. Not even a wounded heart or ego could prevent the Inquisitor from being honest. He took a small step forward, trusting no further blows would repel him back.

"I do not have that answer, Ellana. It isn't in my power to know." The admission clearly pained him. She had seen a similar frustrated regret in his face before: when he couldn't close the rifts, when the Foci orb was shattered, when – Lavellan's eyes stung at the memory – when he'd turned away from her that night in Crestwood. The pained recollection was washed aside when realization struck Lavellan: he'd used her name. He'd never done that before. It was always Herald, Inquisitor, lethallan, even vhenan but never simply her name. Something so small. Who knew it felt so important?

"Where are you? What is going on? What are you doing?!" Demands erupted from the confusion in her own mind, flailing at ignorance in every direction to find some handle on everything that made no sense. Solas gently caught her shoulders, settling the agitation in her stance.

"I have a mission. Not unlike your own. For a time I thought our purposes were intertwined, that they could be accomplished together but that is not the case. This I must do alone and if I succeed," he paused, the word 'if' full of more doubt than she had ever known in his voice, "You will know. I will return and I will tell you. Everything."

"What can I do, Solas? What will help you come back to Skyhold?" To me. She found the fingers of her hands nervously twining in the ties at his belt, unconsciously keeping him close.

"There is nothing anyone else can do. Some things are beyond even you, da'mi." The mage teased. Ellana smiled at the endearment from her childhood, a nickname she had shared with only him. The familiarity of the word mingled with the comfort of his touch and Lavellan fell into the affection that had always flowed so easily between them.

"Don't challenge me, hedge mage. I've already accomplished the impossible. Several times, in fact." She reminded him, closing the last distance between them. Ellana held her breath. She half expected him to resist, to retreat and run as he did before. He didn't. Solas could never be described as cocky but there was a newfound confidence in his smile as he looked down at her.

"A list that will no doubt continue to grow. Be careful, ma vhenan. Be safe. I need a reason to return." His finger traced one cheek, the exact pattern of the vallaslin that had once graced her skin. Ellana caught the hand, holding it to her face before she tilted up to brush his lips. They had only kissed a handful of times, each different and new and exciting. One was hesitant and frightened, then accepting and hungry; another was forbidden, indulgent, guilty but reveling and the last had been bitter with unshed tears. This was the first that held promise.

Only when she thought her chest might burst did Ellana pull back.

"I'll be waiting, Solas. At Skyhold but here too." She cast her eyes to the Fade around them and started when she realized it was no longer the shape of the Inquisition stronghold. In the frozen time of their kiss the dream had shifted around them, flowing into the gentle night air and lapping water of the Crestwood cove. The memory didn't hurt as much as before. Solas also glanced up and around their changed environs, feeling the forgiveness in their presence.

"This journey may not be so lonely as I thought." He smiled and drew her back to his lips.

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The Inquisitor woke in her bed in Skyhold tower with a thin sheen of sweat and a contented smile. In the Fade the only thing that mattered was the dreamer. Now, the only thing that mattered was to dream.


End file.
